On Friday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Ryan Newman addressed for the first time publicly the NASCAR penalty last week that stripped of him of his victory in the Whelen Modified Tour F.W. Webb 100 on July 16 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

NASCAR announced on July 20 that Newman was being stripped of the victory and disqualified from the event after it was discovered that the motor in his Kevin Manion owned Whelen Modified Tour car flagrantly skirted the rulebook.

Newman became the fourth driver since the inception of the Whelen Modified Tour in 1985 to be stripped of a victory.

"Penalty, no penalty, whatever it was, I was proud of the way our team performed up there," said Newman, who was making his eighth career Whelen Modified Tour start. "I was disappointed in what happened. Either why or how it happened I'm not sure a hundred percent."

Driving for Manion, Newman won both Whelen Modified Tour events at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 2010 and also won in the division's 2010 visit to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

Newman drives for Stewart-Haas Racing in the Sprint Cup Series. Manion, a West Boylston, Mass. native and former Whelen Modified Tour crew chief, is the crew chief in the Sprint Cup Series for driver Jamie McMurray with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.

According to a release from NASCAR, the team was found to be in violation of Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4-I (car, car parts, components and/or equipment used do not conform to NASCAR rules); and 20D-5.9P (the intake manifold ports did not completely seal to the cylinder head ports. The use of metal shim-type intake manifold gaskets is not permitted) of the 2011 NASCAR rule book.

Manion released a statement on July 20, in part saying: "Unfortunately, the penalties were a result of circumstances beyond our control." Manion refused to comment on the situation while attending a race at Thompson International Speedway on July 21.

On July 21, Richie Gilmore, chief operating officer of Earnhardt Childress Racing Engines, the company that built the motor, released a statement taking the blame for the engine issue. The statement from Gilmore read in part: "There was absolutely no intent on our part to circumvent the rulebook. We simply made a mistake when building the engine."

Newman hinted Friday that he would return to competition in the series.

"I know there was no intention on my part," Newman said. "What I was told, there was no intention from [the Earnhardt Childress Racing] standpoint. We broke the rule, we accept the penalty, no matter what it is because we broke the rule. Whether it's fair or unfair, that's anybody's opinion. But it's something that we didn't really want at all just because we go in there and we enjoy those races and we don't purposely cheat because we want to have good credibility with those guys. I think some of that is tarnished. We have the opportunity to go back and repolish those things."

Todd Szegedy of Ridgefield, who finished 1.9 seconds behind Newman on the track on July 16, was declared the winner of the event when the penalty against Newman was announced.

In addition to being stripped of the victory, the team was also stripped of the points and money earned for the event. The winner's purse was $14,700. The team was also stripped of the $650 won for earning the pole and another $800 in contingency bonus money. As a team owner, Manion was suspended from regional touring series competition for the remainder of the 2011 season, along with the team's crew chief, Mike LaRochelle.

"It's something I've never experienced in my career, being in a position like that," Newman said. "The good thing was, it wasn't like I spun somebody out, it was my fault, we got black flagged or penalized. It was a part situation, which takes it out of my hands, depending on how you look at it. Nobody ever wants to be a part of it. It does happen in racing. We'll all go on racing."

Why anyone from the upper echelons such as Cup, Nationwide, etc. would compete in the local/regional/sportsman series is bizarre. It's like Big Pappy David Ortiz going to play t-ball. The results are pretty much a forgone conclusion. They will do very well, or very bad, and that's the way it has played out.

Busch/Newman/Manion/Kahne/Stewart et al will all be rather well funded, far more than the regulars in the particular series, and they have the potential to dominate. Add cheating by a ringer and it makes the situation worse.

That these people at the top of the food chain participate in these regional series is sort of a compliment, but not if they come in intending to shred the competition by any means. These ringers will be extremely well funded, competing against teams that are marginally funded or hobbies. Two completely different worlds.

The July 16 NWMT event at Loudon was ruined because of the Newman debacle. Hopefully NASCAR learned a lot from this and will do what is necessary to make sure it never happens again.

If that means ringers are not allowed to run regional series, so be it.

your team really should be BANNED from the Whelen series, cup driver, cup crew chief, billioniare owner & you guys come down to the whelen series & cheat to win. YOU REALLY SHOULD BE A ASHAMED OF YOURSELF.

The Whelon modified Racing has been and hopefully will continue to be one of the BEST or if not The BEST racing at Loudon. When Kevin Manion broke into the racing business he became very successful with Tommy Baldwin. The NY7 team is a group of Nextel Cup racing employees who came from the Whelon Modified Series and when given the opportunity to race with all their old colleagues it's an honor for them. This is a non pressured race for them with great competition. Yes you come back to win if you can! Yes you want to put your best foot foward. Yes you are proud of the Whelon series and you want to give back. Yes you want to give the fans a great race and your driver the best car you can. If you honestly think that they come up to race with an illegal race car and put their full-time jobs on the line then your blinded by their commitment to racing and their grueling schedules. If you think for a moment that they intentionally installed a metal gasket rather than paper then that's your option and you’re entitled to it. Just take a few moments to think about their first few races. The first race they overheat, the second race their taken out and the same in their third. They went through the same racing curve as any other Modified team. Then take a moment and think what they have done to continue to help market and build the Whelon Modified Series. When you read all the contentious non factual stories by writers covering the Whelon Modified Series with no credibility as a bystander it definitely hurts to see other accused of everything other than facts. Yes they did make a mistake, yes I believe it was not intentional and I believe it was totally blown out of proportion.

"Yes they did make a mistake, yes I believe it was not intentional and I believe it was totally blown out of proportion." -AJS

Please do tell what the "mistake" was.

How was it "totally blown out of proportion"?

Look, the engine failed the intake pressurization and vacuum tests. Pretty big leaks. If that was a true mistake, and the engine was jetted for normal conditions (no leaks), the engine would have been leaned out and lost power. It would have been a dog. This engine had far superior power meaning the carburetor had to be jetted to take advantage of the leaks.

Sorry pal, but you can't have mistaken intake air leaks producing whopping horsepower that destroy the rest of the field.

The penalty was rather severe, indicating that the infraction was egregious, not a simple mistake.

Do you really think the penalty for using a metal gasket instead of the legal paper gasket should be disqualification, loss of points, loss of winnings (race and winning the pole), and suspended from participating in regional series for the rest of the year? That's a rather severe penalty for the "mistake" of using the wrong intake manifold gasket, eh? Looks like it was more than simply using the wrong intake gasket.

The penalty was severe, such as there was little left to mete out a more severe penalty. That speaks volumes. Could you imagine Cup guys banned from NASCAR for what they did in a sportsman series?

ABOUT

On August 18, 1995 Shawn Courchesne attended his first short track racing event, filling in on coverage for a Friday night show at Stafford Motor Speedway for the Hartford Courant. Little did he realize that night ... read more